This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water. To raise awareness of the alarming problem of plastic waste, Jasmine Zimmerman[2] created the Bottle House[3] – an open-roofed greenhouse made from hundreds of recycled plastic bottles. It’s an excellent example of repurposing a harmful and overlooked material into one that will grow vegetation, and Jasmine plans to exhibit the greenhouse in empty lots, rooftops, parks, and vacant buildings to help spread the word. We caught up with the structure in Seattle[4] at Bumbershoot 2008[5], where it was joined by a number of socially and environmentally charged installations and performances.

According to the Container Recycling Institute[6], Americans drink 70 million[7] disposable bottles of water each day, with a meager 10 million making their way to a recycling bin. Although we’re not sure about the gobs of hot glue holding the Bottle House together, we love the way Jasmine[2] has recycled the cast off containers into a greenhouse capable of breathing life through the discarded plastic bottles.